Winter is coming to bloggerheads everywhere, as Massive Moneybags Google advises that it is shutting down Google Reader on July 1st. Geeks are sweating, economists are freaking out. I'm none too happy myself.
Alternative platforms are crashing around the world as panicking freaks and geeks crash at their doors with DDOS tactics that would make Black Friday at Macy's look civil. The comments thread at Marginal Revolution has a few suggestions.
Feedly was my first stab at a Plan B. Fingers crossed, but unless the lag clears once the DDOS stampede/migration wanes, that platform's acting like a big bloated pile of Beta. It's as if Adobe Acrobat Reader took over RSS feeds, such is the sub-optimal load time.
Plan C, Netvibes, met the same fate. I don't like phones in general, let alone smart phones, so the cross-platform appeal is lost to me. The cleanest Just Works platform so far seems to be The Old Reader. We'll see. So far the server is overloading so badly, it won't accept Reader imports right now.
I have no idea who is behind any of these alternative ventures. I don't particularly care. The feeds must flow. Screw the Gulf of Cyber-Tonkin.
Reader popped out of Google Labs, from the same nerd who birthed Blogger. Something's afoot on this platform too, and I'm wondering how long before, like some nomadic techno-hermit, I'll have to migrate this blog to another site as well.
That would really hurt. My trust in Google is already shaken by the Reader assassination. Another blow might just be brand-fatal for Google as far as this user is concerned.
